1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an orientation division type liquid crystal display device and a fabrication method thereof and, particularly, the present invention relates to an orientation division type liquid crystal display device of an active matrix drive type, which has a COT (Color filter on TFT) structure in which color filters are arranged on a pixel electrode side substrate having TFT (Thin Film Transistor) switching elements, which is capable of widening a viewing angle of pixel display. Furthermore, the present invention relates to an image display method for use in the orientation division type liquid crystal display device to widen a viewing angle of the pixel display.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The liquid crystal display device has been utilized in various fields as a display device for a television receiver, personal computer and projector, etc., due to the merits of lightweight and low power consumption characteristics thereof. Particularly, the color liquid crystal display device has become popular and the image display mode thereof has been expanded to a monochromatic display, multi-color display and full color display according to objects and use.
As a drive system of the color liquid crystal display, there is an active matrix drive type color liquid crystal display having a switching element such as silicon TFT provided for each of a number of display pixels for controlling a write operation of signal voltage.
With the recent improvement in fineness and coloring of a liquid crystal display device, the increase of the viewing angle of a pixel color layer region of color filters has been required, in view of the image contrast and clearness of image display. In order to accommodate to such request, there have been various proposals for increasing the viewing angle by controlling orientation of liquid crystal molecules.
For example, Japanese Patent Publication of Non-Examined Application No. H7-311383 discloses a liquid crystal orientation control in which a slope portion of a transparent electrode film of ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) is provided to control the orientation of liquid crystal molecules along the slope surface.
Furthermore, an opening portion or a protruding portion is provided in a transparent electrode on the side of an opposing substrate and, in combination with the orientation control slope of the pixel electrode, the orientation of liquid crystal molecules is controlled.
In Japanese Patent Publication of Non-Examined Application No. H8-152639, a surface of an opposing substrate on which color filters are provided correspondingly to pixel electrodes on a pixel electrode substrate is made corrugated to divide the orientation direction of liquid crystal molecules to a plurality of orientation directions along the protruding portions thereof.
Under the circumstances, it is usual in the conventional color liquid crystal display device including the above mentioned prior arts to provide pixel color layers as color filters of each of pixels on the side of an opposing substrate.
On the other hand, there is an active matrix drive type liquid crystal display device having a COT structure which includes the pixel color layers as color filters arranged on the side of a pixel electrode substrate.
By employing the COT structure in each pixel region (G, R, B) of a pixel electrode array, it is possible to concentrate the complicated fabrication process for a drain electrode, a drain wiring, a gate electrode and a gate wiring, etc., in four peripheral sides of the pixel electrode on the side of one of the substrates to thereby facilitate the fabrication and reduce the process load.
Furthermore, it is usual in one pixel region to provide a black matrix (BM) layer between adjacent pixel color layers and between corresponding pixel electrode arrays. In such COT structure, four peripheral sides of each pixel electrode are separated from those of adjacent pixel electrodes by the BM layer while utilizing the above-mentioned merits in fabrication process. It is easy to form the BM layer thicker than a usual BM layer.
The conventional liquid crystal display devices described hereinbefore do not employ the COT structure. That is, color filters are arranged on the side of the opposing substrate and the slope portions, etc., are formed on the side of the opposing substrate to divide the orientation of liquid crystal molecules to thereby widen the viewing angle of the pixel display.
There is no detail description of formation of slopes in Japanese Patent Publication of Non-Examined Application No. H8-152639. Assuming that such slope is formed, for example, on or through a step portion provided on the side of an opposing substrate, the initial orientation of liquid crystal molecules on the side of the opposing substrate become opposite to the initial orientation of liquid crystal molecules on the side of the pixel electrode substrate, so that it is impossible to evenly divide orientation of liquid crystal molecules to a plurality of directions.
In the proposal disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Publication of Non-Examined Application No. H7-311383, a transparent electrode of an opposing substrate is formed on an insulating layer to step up the transparent electrode to thereby form a slope as an orientation control dislocation layer.
However, since the orientation control dislocation layer is usually formed by etching SiNx or SiO2, etc., it is not easy to form a clearly defined step portion.
Furthermore, it is very difficult to control the initial orientation of liquid crystal molecules to a desired angle by such gentle slope formed on suchsmall step portion. Therefore, it is very difficult to shorten the response time by more clearly dividing the initial orientation direction.